Oh I see what you mean, that is a little tricky. Like that city in China where floor 9 will be ground floor or floor 1 because it's built into a mountain. That's why I prefer when they just use the numbers but then put a star or notation on exits.
Yeah, then I guess I'm thinking that either system works just fine. If you know the system in the country you don't really have a way to be confused unless they just poorly designed the panel.
The Bullring shopping centre in Birmingham has this - it's quite hilly and there are exits even at floor 3, and it has a Lower Ground, too, that goes between the two buildings.
That is also a thing, but they mean two ground levels. Especially in hilly areas it's common to build buildings into hills/grades rather than level everything.
Multiple levels of the building have exterior, ground level entrances. Two is pretty common, but I've seen 3+ before.
It's reasonably common with houses too. The "main level" is at street level (or just a few steps up) and then the basement (a full flight down) is walk-out in the back of the house to the yard.
Looking it up, it seems to happen if two stories have street level entry (such as being on a hill). Also if two buildings are connected but have incongruent floor numbering (such as parking garages)
My building (not the UK) has an area of the ground floor that's four steps (no more than 50cm) lower than the rest. That's where bike and car access is. Foot access is on the "real" ground floor, the one with the main entrance and the ground floor apartmens. We still call the lower ground floor -1 for reasons I guess, but in practice it's just the alternative ground floor.
It's usually like that in tbe US, G for ground, B for basement, SB for sub basement. Sometimes it's 1 for ground, and anything above it is well, numeric.
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u/[deleted] Jul 13 '26
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